IPA: Mainstay or Fad?

Actually, I have that book and on page 25, it states the term "India Pale Ale" was first states in 1835, so I was off by only 5 years .

 

This just states that the name appeared in 1835 .Not that they were first brewed then , they were simply sold as Pale Ales.
But even after that many IPAs such as Bass were always simply labelled as Pale Ales which of course all IPAs ultimately are.
As regards beer fads , in the early 19th century the big seller was Porter/Stout
Later these declined and Porter brewers had to start brewing Ales as well.Many pubs here have signs advertising Ales and Stouts.Mild Ale was king for a while and then it was the turn of Pale Ale followed bu lagers.
Incidentally brewing records show that IPA was almost invariably the weakest beer in the range.This continued over the 20th century and IPA such as Greene King IPA is just 3.6% ABV.

 

Just read the OP and no other comments. To answer your question, I don't believe it's a fad. What makes you believe this? You didnt post anything to back it up. Stone IPA was released 22 years ago and is still a staple in the beer industry.

Or do you mean the recent increase of the freshest possible IPA ideology, weekly can releases of an NEIPA, WCIPA, etc., and/or breweries putting out new IPAs every other day, etc.?

 

It was already discussed in an above post but the year 1835 is for the terminology of "IPA'. Pale Ales intended for export to India were brewed earlier than that year.

Cheers!

 

Correct. So up until 1835 they were simply Pale Ales intended for consumption in London. Once they began the transport to India, the term "India" Pale Ale was coined...

 

Perhaps my sentence structure was unclear in my previous post? The beer that is considered to be the 'original' IPA was Hodgson's Pale Ale (brewed by Bow Brewery). In your IPA book Mitch Steele spends a lot of time discussing this beer. On page 27 he writes: "...the Bow Brewery was the most renowned brewer of pale beer or pale beer for export to India in the late 1700's and early 1800's..."

What can we learn from the above quoted sentence? Well:

1. What we would term as an "IPA" beer was exported to India in the late 1700's. In other words many decades previous to 1840.
2. Hodgson's Pale Ale was brewed for export to the Indian market.

Cheers!

 

LOL If your need to be right will make your day, then fill your boots. Point is, pale ale is NOT IPA and IPA is NOT pale ale...simple linguistics dictates the very definition.

The pale ales of the early 18th century were lightly hopped and quite different from today's pale ales.[7] By the mid-18th century, pale ale was mostly brewed with coke-fired malt, which produced less smoking and roasting of barley in the malting process, and hence produced a paler beer.[8][9] One such variety of beer was October beer, a pale well-hopped brew popular among the landed classes, who brewed it domestically; once brewed it was intended to cellar two years.[10]


(19th century poster for Phipps, an IPA brewer in Northampton.)

Among the first brewers known to export beer to India was George Hodgson's[3] Bow Brewery, on the Middlesex-Essex border. Bow Brewery beers became popular among East India Company traders in the late 18th century because of the brewery's location near the East India Docks[a] and Hodgson's liberal credit line of 18 months. Ships transported Hodgson's beers to India, among them his October beer, which benefited exceptionally from conditions of the voyage and was apparently highly regarded among its consumers in India.[12] Bow Brewery came into the control of Hodgson's son in the early 19th century, but his business practices alienated their customers.[citation needed] During the same period, several Burton breweries lost their European export market in Russia when the Tsar banned the trade, and were seeking a new export market for their beer.[11]

At the behest of the East India Company, Allsopp brewery developed a strongly-hopped pale ale in the style of Hodgson's for export to India.[13][14] Other Burton brewers, including Bass and Salt, were eager to replace their lost Russian export market and quickly followed Allsopp's lead. Perhaps as a result of the advantages of Burton water in brewing,[c] Burton India pale ale was preferred by merchants and their customers in India, but Hodgson's October beer clearly influenced the Burton brewers' India pale ales.

Regardless, it feels like I have been schooled enough today. You have yourself a wonderful rest of yours...

 

I feel that, given how many breweries have transformed into "all IPA breweries" with a few styles that aren't, e.g., Stone and Modern Times here in CA, that IPAs have a strong enough presence in craft beer culture to remain one of the most popular styles indefinitely. Take me, for example: I love all beer styles. I buy Pilsners, Stouts, Porters, Pale Ales, Barrel-aged beers, Sours, etc., etc. However, I crave hops like a fiend. I'd pick a fresh IPA or Double IPA over any other style, even though I have a sophisticated palate and an appreciation for all styles.

 

I would say at the very least, IPA threads on this site are dominant.

 

Sometimes a beer style comes along before the specific beer style name is formalized. This was indeed the case with Hodgson’s Pale Ale – IPA.

Cheers!

 

I never did get your opinion on American style IPA. Is it more "sacrilege!" or "hell yeah!"?

 

I think you've answered this before, but does IRI data account for keg sales at bars and on-premise sales?

If they don't, then IRI data would not show the complete picture, especially in today's market regarding on-premise sales at tap rooms.

Oh come on now, I don't think "69ing" is going away anytime soon.

 

I dunno, I feel like IPA threads have been a thing for at least 10 years on this site, if not longer.

 

Thanks for talking me off a ledge bud!

 

Nope, but there are other groups (Gallop and Neilsen among 'em IIRC) that do.

And the Brewers Association is aware of it, but they still use the IRI data for many of the reports.

Yup, and often mentioned, like above:

 

I think dominant is a fair term.
I'm looking at IRI data for Total US Multi-Outlet + Conv (3/4/2019 past 52 weeks) and IPA is 40% of Craft beer dollars. (About $1.2B) the next closest style is Seasonal (many of which are also IPAs) at $366M. The next largest style segments after that are Pale Ale ($281M) and Variety ($220M) In essence, IPA as a category is more than 70% larger than the next nearest competitor. That's pretty darn dominant. Yes, IPA is (only) 40% of the total craft market but the remaining 60% is made-up of 30 different styles.

Moreover, if you were able to calculate the number of seasonal IPAs, IPAs in Variety packs, and IPAs masquerading as Pale Ales, you'd likely be well-above the 50% mark.

 

Bill, how are IPAs trending? Are they even more popular today then they were last year (and the year before)? Do you see any signs that the popularity of IPAs is softening? Is it challenging to properly characterize this with the growth of IPA sub-styles (e.g., 'NEIPA', Brut IPA,...)?

Also, how is the Session IPA segment doing now? It seems like a couple of years ago that Session IPAs were the 'hot new beer' but what about now?

Cheers!

 

Yeah, well, it's likely somewhat contradictory, but I guess I agree that IPA dominates in a list of the other craft styles, but I don't think it's "dominant".
A "distinction without a difference", I suppose.

But, especially since the B.A. and IRI lists these India Pale Ale sub-styles [2016]:

And that pre-dates the current acceptance of "NEIPA" and "Brut IPA". (I don't pay enough attention, are "Hazy IPA" and "NEIPA" the same?) Damn, what other style has that many sub-styles? It almost rivals "Ale" and "Lager".

I mean, if the fear is of some sort of "IPA monoculture" that dominants the craft segment, the redundant use of the "IPA" term for very different styles doesn't suggest that. (Though the "chicken/egg" controversy becomes who fault is it?)

 

IPA is up $147M (13.5%).

Session IPAs are difficult to quantify via IRI data because they are generally lumped into the greater IPA category. On a brand level there is only one session IPA that matters... Everybody else's is an "also ran" in the grand scheme of total dollar figures (it's like a 65 to 1 ratio).

Brut IPA is also going to be tough to look at. There are some, so it is affecting the total IPA mix. Many brewers (myself and my former employer included) released theirs as seasonals, so many are captured there rather than the IPA category.

Fun fact--IRI looks at 3014 individual IPA brands (which add-up to that $1.2B category number) The top 20 brands earned about half that ($548M) and the other 2994 made up the other half. Shows you the size and the earning potential of a really gangbuster IPA. No wonder why so many brewers want to make one!!

 

That's fair, I guess. I don't love, and subsequently don't use the sub-style classification that IRI has (there are a LOT of beers that are mis-cued and generally speaking, consumers couldn't care less about most of the hair-splitting...not BA's but the GenPop.)